Tough times never last, but tough people do!

It was the title of one of Dr. Robert Schuller’s (the original one) books, and it’s true!

It’s been a rough week in Boquete and in other sections of Panama as well, including the Gnobe Bugle comarca. If you drove into Valle Escondido this morning, or even yesterday, with the sun shining . . . it did indeed look like paradise. But even in paradise there are storms and disasters. It could be snow and ice, or tornados, hurricanes or tsunamis . . . we don’t happen to have those things in Boquete. What we do have at this time of year is rain, often lots of it. The winds blow from the North at this time and bring storm after storm off the Pacific and across Panama, so we get alot of rain in November. And tropical rain is often torrential and the predictable result is flooding and mudslides. All-in-all people have held up well.

My very good friends Brad and Jackie suffered the most and lost 90% of their million dollar home in Valle Escondido when the mountain wall collapsed on top of their house and sent a wall of dirt and mud through the part that remained standing. Their house keeper, Richard, was in Panama City, and Brad was in the States, and Jackie was home alone. He came outside to check out a wierd noise, looked up at the mountain, saw it start to move and ran . . . when he turned around the mountain was on top of his house. With the rest of the family gone, Jackie is left alone to cope with not only the loss but also the cleanup. I snapped this picture of the damage, not really paying attention to Jackie being in the picture, but when I look at it, the look on his face conveys it all.

But this is one tough China man! He’s generally pretty quiet, until you get to know him, and, at 37 is a lot older than he looks. He’s an ex-Taiwanese marine and a tough cookie, despite his slight looks. In his high school English class in Taiwan the teacher was arbitrarily giving students English names, and I think Jackie got stuck with something like Stewart (no offense to all the Stewarts out there!). He complained and the teacher let him pick his own name, so he choose Jackie Chan after the kung-fu movie star. His Chinese name is beautiful when he says it, but most Anglos can’t reproduce the tonal sounds of his name and it comes out sounding like chop suey, so, except officially, he’s Jackie Chan.

He’s faced this tragedy alone and day by day he has become more optimistic and positive in spite of the mud! He finds the humor in having spent weeks taking all the bad grass out of his back lawn and just when it was perfect . . . down came the mountain. He cleaned the gutters to be ready for the rains . . . then this. He’s gracious when neighbors ignore that his house is in ruins and complain about the mud run off ruining their grass. He worries about their problems, when he has humongous problems of his own. When I’m lamenting his loss, he is pointing out ways in which his glass is half full. Amazing guy, really, and I’m glad to have him as a friend.

It is amazing what a few people, very few, have been able to do it removing mud, pulling out a few trinkets that can be saved, and initiating the clean up. A lot has been done in a few days, but there is so much more to be done.

What has always amazed me, both professionally and personally, is how quickly and instantaneously life can change. But in the midst of tragedy . . . the tough times never last, but tough people do! What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.

Jackie is one tough guy.

Living in A Disaster Zone

Tuesday started ordinary enough.  Our truck was in the garage . . . broken transmission fluid line.  With only one car, at 8AM I drove Nikki into Boquete to the BCP Theater, where she volunteers as manager, to get things set up for the Tuesday Morning gringo meeting.  She had meetings afterward and promised to give me a call around 3pm when she was ready to be picked up.  It was raining and had been seemingly for weeks, although it was only a day or so . . . stead rain.  Panama had tropical depressions on either side of the Isthmus producing heaving rain which looked, as our Aussie friend Diane said, like two big bosoms on radar.  (They would eventually merge in the Caribbean to form hurricane Ida.)  Since it was the first of our string of November holidays, and we had nobody working on the finca,  I went home to work uninterrupted on my world cruise lecture on Kusadasi (Ephesus) and to start on Istanbul.  Lecturing on a world cruise sounds romantic and exciting, but right now it is just sitting at the computer trying to coalesce thousands of years of history into a few dozen visually exciting Powerpoints with a few good laugh-lines thrown in to keep the audience having a good time as we slog through empire after empire.

About 3:15 PM I got a call from Nikki to pick her up at Dave and Erin Ross’s in Boquete.  Usually it’s 10 minutes to get from our house to “downtown” Boquete.  Traffic in Alto Boquete (“upper” Boquete as opposed to Bajo Boquete “lower” Boquete, which I usually laughingly refer to as “downtown” Boquete) as jammed up like the 101 in Ventura.  Panamanians may be laid-back, particularly in the “frontera” or “interior”, but there were a lot of Panama City folks here for Tuesday which was the Get-Ready-for-The-First-Independence-Day-And-Five-Months-of-Kicking-Back-And-Working-A-Little-as-Possible holiday, otherwise known as GRFTFIDAFMOBAWALAP Day.  (The Panamanian government loves alpha-bet-soup names for the several million or so government agencies.  I can never figure out what the acronym stands for, much less what the agency does . . . but they all have nice logos.)  So all the Panama city driver began honking horns and resorting to the Panama City cluster-fuck driving style when confronted with a traffic jam, i.e. cars headed the wrong way against traffic and going in every direction proceeding to make a bad situation worse.

I’ve lived now in Panama long enough to big up a few things . . . my Panamanian attorney from Panama City rides with me, covers his eyes and says, “Wow!  You drive like a Chiricano!”, which I take as a great compliment, but then I learned my driving skills in New York City and on California freeways. 

So, hearing approaching sirens and seeing flashing lights and knowing that the authorities were arriving and would soon make matters worse, I too pulled out into oncoming traffic on the two-lane road and managed to get to the turnoff for Volcancito.  I figured there had been an accident on the grade where the two lane road snakes down into Bajo Boquete (“downtown”) and that I would sneak around up through Volcancito and then down the back way through El Salto into Boquete. 

As I turned up the road to Volcancito  some of our friends from Panama City were standing beside the road with their car and told me that Boquete had flooded and they were trying to get everyone out and not letting anyone back in.    Apparently it had rained all day, much, much harder in Boquete than it had in Palmira, 10 minutes away.  This happens in the Chiriqui mountains: it can be pouring one place, and sunny in another.  So it took me 1 hour to wend my way through Volcancito and down through El Salto going through 6 mudslides on the way.

When I got to Dave and Erin Ross’s there were a few cars in the driveway, and I rang the bell and nothing happened.  So I figured the power was out and walked in . . . and the entire floor was covered with water.  I found Dave and Erin, Nikki, and some friends on the back porch, sipping wine.  They had all returned from a BCP Theater meeting and found water cascading into their house from a failed roof.  So you can see that even we gringo are adapting, adjusting to the cultural differences and coping with disaster without stressing unduly.

Knowing I had to navigate back to Palmira I drug my wife away from the wine, and we headed home.  Boquete was a wet zoo, but most of the people had left and a few parade left-over schools and bands were boarding buses to head home.  We found our friends from Panama at my brother’s former house in Boquete and they were showing us some of the damage from the river that had flooded there.  Some folks next door came over and they were digging out.  I managed to slip on the grass and go crashing down hitting my head and getting covered with mud.    Meanwhile ambulances and emergency vehicles were streaming out of Valle Escondido where we used to live before moving to the finca.  My friend, whose cousin in the mayor, said that his cousin had told him Valle Escondido was a disaster area and houses had collapsed.   Since we have friends in Valle Escondido and still own a house there, obviously we were concerned.  I wasn’t sure they would let us in, but the guards all know us and so we drove in to see this beautiful valley full of mud and debris.   From the other side of the valley we could see that our house looked fine.  I asked one of the Valle Escondido workers if our friends house was OK, and he just took his hands and mimicked it breaking in two.  I asked if he had seen our friend and he said no . . . now, really concerned . . . we drove up the road past our property, which looked fine (and is) up to a sea of mud and a few city vehicles.  Thankfully we saw Jackie standing in the middle of the mud in the street.  The mountain above their home had collapsed and came crushing down tearing away the left side of the house.  Jackie had escaped moments before the mountain came down with nothing but the shirt on his back.  But he was alive!  His partner was in the States, their houseboy was in Panama, and their renter had been on line in their bunker-like downstairs guest apartment through the entire thing, not really knowing there was a problem until he lost his Internet connection. 

By this time the Valley was a sea of fog and it was quickly getting dark, so we really couldn’t see much.   Jackie had rescued one of their two cats.  He had a place to stay and we took the cat to the vet.

More later . . . suffice it to say that for two days I have been up to my ankles, and sometimes up to my thighs (and needing help getting pulled out) in a sea of mud and debris.  It is pretty much all gone.  You have to understand that Brad & Jackie had one of the truly showplace homes in Valle Escondido.  Brad’s kitchen was the finest kitchen in Boquete with acres of cherry and granite, top-of-the line professional everything, Viking this and Viking that . . .  we found the Viking built in refrigerators yesterday . . . identified them by the drawer containing the neatly wrapped cheese slices, in the pile of mud and debris where the bedroom used to be, squashed like an accordion.   There are areas of the house that it will take us weeks to uncover. 

I don’t like living in a disaster zone.  When I was in seminary a tornado roared through Comstock Park and I came home to find that the path of the tornado was down our street.  My folks home was spared, but many of our neighbor’s homes were totally obliterated.  I can still hear the chain saws and remember the agony of helping people sort through piles of what had once been their homes, hoping to salvage some reminder of their lives before the disaster.  It all came back the past two days.

We lived in Ventura County, California . . . what can I say.  I remember a month when the city was ringed with fire all night and hundreds of fire crews from all over the West coast where running through town to fight fires, driving back from Santa Barbara and seeing the hills above our house in Ventura all ablaze . . .

The responses to folks at these times is interesting too . . . people come and say, “If there is anything I can do . . .”  and then walk away.  Hell!  You see all this mud?  You see that shovel?  Pick it up and help!   But they really don’t want to help, they just want to ease their own consciences by volunteering without doing what obviously needs done.  Brad hosted a weekly dinner party for a local group . . . two days have gone by and I haven’t seen any of those folks showing up with shovels?  What the f***?   We are either in this thing called life together . . . or not.  So for those of my local friends who are reading this . . . grab a shovel, put on your boots and help!  Response to this kind of tragedy defines who and what we are as a community.

Some folks “get it” . . . we had three guys show up with shovels and wheel barrows . . . people Jackie didn’t even know. A couple of gals showed up yesterday a noon with lunch for all of us! Just saw a need and filled it. As Dr. Robert Schuller used to say, “Find a need and fill it: find a hurt and heal it.”

 Unfortunately, even “paradise” can have natural disasters.

More later . . .

Picking Up The Pieces

The two tropical depressions that have combined to form hurricane Ida have moved through Panama . . . so hopefully we may be in store for some sunny days after seemingly days and days of pouring rain. The patriotic parades went on in the rain, even as down the block folks struggled to pick up the pieces of their lives. There was extensive flooding and mud slides in Boquete.

Valle Escondido was particularly hard hit. Although our house in Valle Escondido escaped without damage, our friends up the road, whose house backs up against the valley wall, weren’t so lucky. Their $1 million home is gone. Thankfully our friend Jackie escaped with only the clothes on his back before the mountain came crashing down and the others were all away from Chiriqui. Yesterday we all spent the day up to our knees in mud and rubble . . . and back again today.

Even in “paradise” . . . shit happens.

More tomorrow . . .

The Mail

Fly fishing?

Hi Richard-I came across your site and blog. What fun being an expat in Boquete!

My husband and I are travelling to Panama in January, 2010. We are taking the all day canal transit tour on Jan. 16th. ( We are not cruise ship people) We live in the Sunriver Resort, south of Bend,Oregon. Perhaps you know of it or have been here.

We were thinking of visiting the Kuna Indians at one of the San Blas Islands. i.e. El Porvenir or Playa Chico or ? Can you recommend which island to go to for a night or two to experience their culture? Also, my husband is an avid fly fisherman. Do you know of fly fishing either in the ocean or rivers in ALL of Panama?

Next, we have friends that live in Boquete (your home) where we want to explore your area. See a coffee plantation, etc. We don’t know how many days to allocate to see your area. Any ideas? Then we fly from David to San Jose, Costa Rica. Thanks in advance for any assistance, guidance, recommendations you might have for us. We’ll only make this trip once in our life time so we want to do/see all we can. Haley Dahlquest

Hi Haley! Well, let’s start with your last comment . . . “We’ll only make this trip once in our life time”. That’s what we and a whole lot of other folks who live here now as expats thought! So, good luck! I know Bend is nice . . . my daughter went to Willamette . . . and you may be surprised by Boquete. We’d lived in Colorado for six years, and many times as I’m driving down the mountain I think Boquete is like Colorado without snow. I’d plan on at least 4 or 5 days in Boquete . . . there are coffee tours, river rafting (our water is warmer than yours!), hiking . . . lots to explore. I’m not a fisherman and know nothing about fly fishing, but I have heard that if you get high in the mountains above the coffee farms that there are native trout and fly fishing. My neighbors in Boca Chica, Bruce at www.gonefishingpanama.com can give you the lowdown on fishing in the Pacific.

Unfortunately we haven’t had time yet to get out to the San Blas. We had a trip all planned, then something came up. I know that it is pretty undeveloped as a tourist destination by choice of the Kuna. There are some small hotels that are run by the Kuna and they would be your best bet.

I’m sure some of my readers know a lot more about this than I do, so maybe they will chime in and share some advice, which I will pass on.

On Carnival Miracle . . .

Hi Richard! I have enjoyed your links through Cruise Critic as I being my research for our upcoming cruise. We are sailing on the Carnival Miracle in February 2010, this will be our first time visiting Panama, and we are scheduled to be in port from 0700 to 1700. Traveling with me are my 77 year old mother (who is in good shape!) and my two sisters. My youngest sister is a stroke survivor, and has some mobility issues, but she can walk distances, albeit a little slower than most. We always make a point of enjoying some of the culture of the country we are visiting. Do you have any recommendations for tours to avoid (because of age/mobility) or ones we should consider. We usually venture out on our own and steer clear of the ships excursions because of the size of the tours, so we are not fearful of doing that. Our safety is of utmost concern to us (and my husband, who is not coming along on this cruise!) My mother would like to see the canal and locks, my sisters the wildlife, and I am easy to please! Is there any tour you are familiar with that would cover those particular sights? Thank you for any advice you may have for us! And we will happily stick with the ships tours if you think that is the best option for four women! Thank you in advance! Gail Foley

As an aside . . . I’m glad Carnival has started coming up with names like CARNIVAL DREAM and CARNIVAL MIRACLE . . . the old run of ships . . . ECSTASY, FANTASY and SENSATION . . . all sounded like condom brand names!

Hi Gail! For wildlife I would suggest the “Gatun Lake Safari” where you go by a small boat – 20 or so people – out on Gatun Lake. The guy who runs this tour lives on a houseboat in Gatun Lake and knows where the monkeys and stuff hang out, so you will see wildlife. They do a nice Panamanian lunch on his houseboat, and you will be crossing the Canal itself at several points and see the ships going across Gatun Lake and some of the work going on to enlarge the channel. You won’t see the locks. You will have to get in and out of a boat, but the boat guys are very helpful and the only walking involved is on and off the bus and to and from the boat.

To see the Canal there is a tour that will take you by ferry-boat through Pedro Miquel and Miraflores. You’ll see the locks and the main part of the Canal and get a glimpse of Panama City. Again the only walking is to and from the bus. Experiencing the Canal on a small ferry-boat is different from on a large ship and you can reach out and touch the sides of the Canal. Unfortunately, no wildlife.

So it is a choice which you want: wildlife or Canal. I would definitely recommend going through the ship and not attempting this on your own.

Looking for a deal . . .

My husband and I want to do a trip to the Panama Canal in Jan or Feb. We have only done one cruise before to Acapulco. Now I am looking for a good deal—to maybe only do part of the canal and more ports in the Caribbean. My husband just was forced to retire—laid off from his job. Lily

Life is change and growth and there is no growth without change, so good luck to both of you and I know you will make the best out of your situation and hopefully look back someday and think that was the best thing that happened to us. [Check out my earlier post on THE AGE OF THE UNTHINKABLE, an interesting book which applies not only to geopolitics and economics, but also to the challenges of our personal lives.]

Right now there are still some good deals . . . steals? . . . out there as cruise lines fill their ships at any price.  I’d look at the 10-day cruises that go into the Canal and are round-trip from Florida, like ZUIDERDAM. 

Any insight into . . . life??

Aloha Richard, We are considering a Panama Canal cruise this March-May. I think one leaves on May first. Are there must see, should skip ports? And also any insight into ships? We have been on Princess and HAL only, but not these ships. Thank you, Sharie

Sharie . . . Sharie . . . Sharie.  Try my Panama Cruise page, my Cruise page, or just click on the sidebar to the right on Cruising and Travel and you can enjoy all my fount of knowledge and insight.  That’s kinda why I took the time to put all that stuff here.   Then, if you have more questions, shout.  Aloha.

Snakes . . .

Richard, We will be on HAL Oosterdam (11/02/2009) and will enter Canal at Cristobal at 5:00 a.m. 11/08, exit Canal at Balboa at 7:00 p.m. and depart Fuerte Amador at 5:00 p.m. 11/09. I really want to visit the Embera Village but am very concerned that I may see a snake! I am terrified to even be in the vicinity of one that may be brought by me for viewing! At a distance I would be ok. Is it “safe” for me to make this tour? Any other suggestions for what to do at this stop? My husband will probably do one of the other tours – Observation Center or Panama Railroad.  Thank you for your help. Lynne

Lynne, you should be so lucky as to actually see a snake in the wild.   Go in peace.  It is a very “safe” tour for you and others.  The only tour I know where they bring out a snake . . . a nice boa . . . and let people who wish hold it, is on the “Gatun Lake Safari” tour.    People who take the Embera Village tour love it!  And no snakes!

Smaller ship in Canal . . .

Hi Richard I am doing some background work on cruising thru the Panama Canal. My husband is not interested in cruising on a large line but we also have at most 10 days to play with. We are also bringing my 76 yr old mom with us. This is one of her dream trips she is in good shape but does tire. Can you suggest where to look and what to look for I was reading thru cruise critic and it seems you know a lot but the trips thru the canal. Any help would be appreciated thanks Dawn Davis Keidawn

Princess has four ships described as being like “a day aboard a 5-star country inn”.  One of these is the ROYAL PRINCESS where I am heading in exactly . . . 21 days.   These ships hold only about 600 guests.  The ISLAND PRINCESS is doing 10-day trips into the Canal round trip from Florida and would be ideal for you.

Injustice . . . what’s new?

Richard:  I read your blog today on the above subject [US drug strategy] and thought I would add another recent twist. Not only is Prohibition not working in America it is also affecting the sovereignty of the country to the north. In a complete act of injustice (because we in Canada have reciprocal laws of extradition with the US), the Canadian authorities have been forced to hand over Marc Emery (the Prince of Pot) for selling marijuana seeds south of the border.

An act, that at worse would maybe get a month in jail in Canada, has netted Mr. Emery (a Canadian citizen who has never even been in the US and an active advocate of marijuana legalization) a sentence of 5 years in an American prison! This is wrong!  I am ashamed of my country for allowing this to happen to a Canadian citizen and am completely at odds with the complete waste of money and short-sightedness of my American neighbours in this regard. Garth Liseth,  B.C., Canada

Garth, I too am often shocked and ashamed by the injustice of the US court and legal system.  We do not behead people . . . but we do take their lives, sentencing them to life in prison without possibility of parole for simply being at the wrong place at the wrong time, like Brandon Hein.  What makes it worse is that the US sets itself up as the judge of perceived injustices in the rest of the world, while committing atrocities like with Brandon here at home.

“You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” -Jesus, Matthew 7:4

Karl, who disagrees with me on Brandon, but is not an ogre . . .

Here’s a low-cost drying solution for your coffee. Probably too late this year with your planned work ahead, but fine for next year. This type of dryer will work rain or shine, and even if overcast, will collect sufficient heat for drying coffee in Panama.

http://www.fao.org/ class=”hiddenSpellError” pre=”">docrep/T1838E/T1838E0v.htm

( I’m not always an ogre, and enjoy the majority of your posts. )

Thanks, Karl.  I will check that out.   We need all the help we can get drying this stuff.  And, for the record, I didn’t call you an ogre . . . almost everything else, but not an ogre.  Thanks for thinking of me . . . and hanging in here!

“Gatun Lake Safari”

I saw your comments about wildlife during a Panama Canal cruise, and specifically “Gatun Lake Safari”. I searched the Internet, but could not find the tour operator. can you give me contact information.

I’m not sure that you can book this tour independently since it requires a certain number of participants and the availability is limited.  If a ship is in the ship’s tour operator has booked the tour completely.  You need to book it through Shore Ex on your ship, either in advance on the Internet or on board.

Day in Puntarenas . . . with kids!

Richard, I know that you’re the expert on Panama, not costs Rica but….. we’re in port @ Puntarenas for one day. Would you have any suggestions of things that we should do w/ twin 11 yr old boys in tow? Thanks so much! Bonnie

There’s really not much to do in Puntarenas.  There is beach, right in town, within walking distance of the ship, that’s used a lot by locals.  On weekends it’s crowded with families.  There is a zip line tour, depending on the size of your twins and the requirements.  The tropical train, rafting (again depending on size requirements) and eco-jungle river tour would be interesting.   A lot of the Puntarenas tours require a lot of bus time so it depends on how your kids do on buses.

A dildo by any other name . . .

I was in the U.S. Air Force and assigned to Japan in 1950. I did some train rides during my off duty days and on one of my adventures I chanced to be in Komaki in the middle of March. The city was at a standstill with the parade and crowds all celebrating Honen Matsuiand. I took some pictures of young girls walking out of the crowd and smooching giant replicas of the male organ. While wandering the crowd, I bought a small cardboard box inside of which was a 6″ hand carved wood penis. I still have it. One of the only things I brought home from the Korean War. J Morris

Man, are you lucky the TSA wasn’t around when you came home from Korea!   “Attention all TSA personnel: we have a dildo alert at position three.”   

So the 240 pound highly trained and educated TSA screener with tight black pants, a shirt with the tail hanging out in back and overbearing military manner says, “So, sir . . . you look like a straight shooter, and having survived Korea . . . what the hell are you doing with a 6″ dildo in your luggage?  Flesh-colored, soft latex we can allow provided you keep it in your luggage at all times and do not remove it, use it, or fondle it during the flight, but, but a 6″ wooden dildo.  Sir, that’s a dangerous weapon of terrorism and must be confiscated.”

Later . . . in the break room, “Hey Mabel, look at this baby!   This straight-looking Air Force dude . . . I didn’t ask and he  obviously wasn’t telling . . . tried to smuggle this onto the plane.  Come to momma, baby . . . “

Counting the days . . . until I leave on ROYAL PRINCESS . . .

So whose calendar has the bigger X’s on it marking off the days until you leave for your big trip..yours or Nikki’s? Dinah

Nikki’s, I am sure!

Coming home . . .

Hi… I just found this site of yours through Google. Amazing! This is what I’ve been looking for many months now! You are a gem of knowledge to me. I am a Panamanian native, born in David Chiriqui. I have lived in California for many years and now wish to move back to my country, yet I am very, very Americanized. Even though I am Panamanian,with dark skin, they still look at me  ”>differntly. I was in David and Boquete two years ago with my wife and first son. I am 29 years old, married with two small children …. I want to move to Boquete! My plan is to build and pastor a church in David. I was considering to buy a house in “Los Montes Del Caldera”. I have many questions before I sell everything I own in California to move back to Panama and do a work for God and be with my family. Would you, sir be willing to assist me with the practicalities of a Panama life style. Thanks, Arcinio Arauz

Arcinio, welcome home!  I took my car to a local “shade tree” mechanic the other day and bumped into a friend of his, a young Panamanian guy who’d gone to the states, fallen in love, got married, and had lived about 15 years in the States.  About 8 months ago he’d come back home to Boquete and was so happy to be back in Panama.  I know that people leave Panama, just like they leave the States, for many reason.  And for many in Panama the States seem like the promised land of opportunity.  But . . . good Panamanian friends of ours have family that live in Simi Valley, California, close to where we lived for 18 years in Ventura.   They LOVE Simi Valley.  Simi Valley!   They talk as if it is almost heaven!  And they are from Boquete!!  Go figure!   I guess to each his own.

I’m sure that many folks who are looking to “escape” to what they perceive to be a “better life” will shake their heads.  But home is home and right now I think there is increasing opportunity for Panamanians who understand the anglo world outside of Panama to come home, bring back some of their experience and apply it here.  The current mayor of Boquete spent time as a young man outside of Panama and as a community we are better for for it because he has brought ideas from North America to Boquete that are tremendously helpful in this time of growth.

Like moving into any community, even if you are coming back, it takes some time to fit in and adjust.  Acknowledging your Americanization is a good start.  Frankly, aside from the fact that you speak Spanish, you may have the same troubles adjusting to Panama as the rest of us.  It ain’t California!  But if God is calling you . . . what can you do?    Let me know how I can help.  What church or denomination are you affiliated with?  Training?  Background?

Working in Panama . . .

hello im thinking of moving to david. i am a university trained american nurse with a speciality in cardiology. is there much employment for nurses in david? Or do you know of any web sites i can Judy

First, the bad news. If you are not a Panamanian you can’t be employed in Panama. Even as a nurse. We have a friend of ours, Dr. Newton Osbourn, who was born up the road from David in Concepcion. He got a scholarship to Yale, then went on to the University of Michigan, and practiced in OB-GYN ending up at Walter Reed. He is one of the world’s experts on treating women with AIDS and lectures all over the world. When he retired he moved back to Panama and was our neighbor when we lived in Valle Escondido. He wanted to be of service and to work in the local Indian clinic, but Panama would not recognize his medical training or experience. He would have to intern in Panama! Incredible, but true! And so, determined to serve, he did! He jumped through the hoops and now is offering his expertise on the staff of the Women & Children’s Hospital in David. But he is Panamanian. Judy even if you were to jump through the hoops here, as a non-Panamanian citizen my understanding is that you could not be employed.

However . . . the work around is to consult. You can set up your own business of one and be a consultant. Or you can develop a related business, like being a “visiting consultant” (“visiting nurse” would imply a medical practice, which you don’t want) who assists and consults primarily with some of us “aging gringos” who now need, or are going to need, that kind of assistance.

Let The Sun Shine

We’re now well into Panama’s rainy season with November being one of the “worst” months with the most rain. And we’re moving into the peak of the coffee harvest season. We pick, rain or shine, and the Gnobe Bugle workers are used to working in the rain, wrapped up in black plastic bags.

Our gourmet Boquete coffee, which would sell in the States for $14-16 a pound, brings us in as growers about 35 cents a pound, gross. By the time you take out wages and fertilizer, not only are we . . . like other small growers in Boquete . . . not making anything, we’re losing money. Which is while several Panamanians we know are just letting their coffee farms go, because it doesn’t pay to pick the coffee. There are folks, like us, who would like to see the coffee culture in Boquete survive, but it is increasingly difficult for the little guy. So this year we are trying to process at least some of our harvest. And it is, as they say, “a learning experience.”

For the moment we’ve decided not to try and put a motor on our little depulping machine that removes the outer red husk of the coffee cherry, but to run the machine by hand. That’s working, but once the beans are removed from the cherry they still need to be washed, again we’re doing it by hand, and then dried. Without the big commercial dryers the big boys use, we have to revert to the traditional method of drying the beans in the sun, which actually produces better tasting coffee.

So just when the rain is heaviest, the sun is most important to us.

Even in the rainiest season, mornings in Boquete are usually glorious, then right now, about noon it starts to rain.  Morning is my favorite time of day in Palmira . . .  Palmira being the tiny town where we live, 1000 feet up the mountain above “downtown” Boquete.  There is something about the quality of light in the morning in Boquete that is magical.

Today promises to be a glorious, sunny day . . . at least until noon!

November is when the pointsettia plants that line our long driveway are the prettiest!

Blue tarps in the driveway are excellent for drying coffee when the weather is nice.    The blue absorbs some heat, but not too much heat, which is what black plastic would do.

Coffee drying in wire racks . . .

This is the good stuff folks!

Nikki takes time out from coffee drying to work with Evangelisto, our Indian worker’s son, on his English homework.

We dry coffee wherever we can, including the front porch!

 

So keep the sun shining . . .  and keep your comments coming!  The next post, I promise, I will answer the mail!  In the meantime, I’m going to have a cup of coffee!  The coffee we’re drinking now is from last year’s harvest.  The green beans have aged, and we are having what we held out roasted in small batches.  The coffee we are producing now won’t be available until next year this time and will be sold as top quality “estate coffee” . . . completely processed by hand on our own farm the traditional way.

Patriotism and Government Service

National Patriotic Month

November is a month when Panamanians celebrate their country . . . with two Independance Day celebrations (Spain and Columbia) that stretch out an entire month. There are endless band practices tying up traffic, and parades and banners and parties.

Two stories that Don Winner ran on Panama-Guide.com caught my attention . . . both about Panama’s new President Ricardo Martinelli, independently very wealthy and the owner of many of the supermarkets (Super 99) in Panama.

Martinelli Approves The Largest Budget In The History of Panama

Telemetro – The approved budget was for more than $10.5 billion dollars. Panama’s President Ricardo Martinelli approved the largest budget in the history of the country for $10.574 billion dollars, nearly half of which is destined for social investment, said the government of Panama. “Panama is facing major problems that can not be solved with delay or simple words or quick fixes, and if we are able to lead a world crisis and continue to grow our economy as we have done in the past three months at 2.5%, we will also be able to overcome our problems with an unprecedented budget” Martinelli said. Of the approved amount, 36.6% (about $3.8 billion dollars) will be for investment and 63.4% ($6.7 billion dollars) for ongoing operations. “We will give special treatment to the social sectors” to which 49% of the budget is directed, more than $5.2 billion dollars, with the goal of reducing poverty and extreme poverty in the country, said Martinelli. The budget includes $1.3 billion to service debt, $516 million in amortization and $834.5 million in interest. This budget beats the record set in 2009 by the administration of Martin Torrijos which was more than $9.7 billion dollars, which was the time was a 17% increase over the $8.3 billion dollar budget of 2008.

Editor’s [Don Winner's] Comment: This budget represents spending equal to only $3,204.24 for every Panamanian citizen ($10.574 billion divided by 3.3 million people.) The Panamanian economy continues to grow and expand, as does the population of the country. Thankfully, now that Panama has full control and dominion over the Panama Canal, the macro strategic economic condition of the country continues to improve, despite the horrendously corrupt governments of Mireya Moscoso and Martin Torrijos. Not much happened economically speaking from 2000 to 2004, a period known locally as “the crisis.” The real boom started in 2005 and continues to this day, despite the global economic downturns of the past year. Short term bumps and jitters aside, over the very long term the outlook for Panama and it’s citizens is more than just bright, it’s simply glowing with a radiance unknown in any other country in Latin America. Blessed with the Panama Canal (thanks, Uncle Sam) and a relatively small geography and population, Panama should be able to continue to improve baseline standards of living and boost all measures of economic standards across the board. Added the one-two punch of the administration of Ricardo Martinelli – that is attacking corruption with one hand while increasing social spending with the other – Panama should continue to make consistent and steady progress over the next five years. The only possible wildcard would be something completely unforeseen and unpredictable – such as the remote and unlikely possibility of a major natural disaster such as a devastating earthquake in Panama City – but barring that the future looks very bright indeed.

Martinelli ran on an Obama-like platform of “Change” . . . and he is making changes and waves, even going after officials in the former administration with charges of corruption and theft. His famous inagural speech line was, “In this administration it is OK to put your foot in your mouth, but not your hand in the till.”

Ricardo Martinelli Takes Only $1 Dollar in Salary as President

TVN Noticias – Panama’s President Ricardo Martinelli gets paid for being the CEO of the National Government – he received exactly $1 dollar. In one of his first acts after assuming the office of President of the Republic on 1 July 2009, Martinelli donated to private foundations and charities his entire monthly paycheck of $7,000 dollars to which he is entitled ($4,000 in salary and $3,000 in expenses.) On Friday, 14 July 2009, the President submitted to the Comptroller General of the Republic a report detailing the 13 institutions that are all receiving continuing and monthly donations stemming from his salary;

Fundación Súper 99 B/.600.00
Fundación Ricardo Martinelli B/.600.00
Fundación Ofrece un Hogar B/.500.00
Hogares Crea B/.500.00
Hogar San José de Malambo B/.500.00
Nutre Hogar B/.500.00
Hogar Bolívar B/.500.00
Fanlyc B/.300.00
Fundación Rotaria B/.300.00
Fundacancer B/.300.00
Probidsida B/.300.00
Casa Esperanza B/.300.00
Damas Guadalupanas B/.221.00

The total monthly donation is for $5,421 with the remainder corresponding to the taxes and deductions as required by law. (Every month Ricardo Martinelli receives a $1 dollar paycheck from the government.)

If it had been me . . . and I owned Super 99 . . . I probably would have only accepted 99 cents a month, but . . . hey . . . keeping it $1 has “no strings”.   Accepting the man at face value, and assuming he isn’t shipping containers of the people’s money to other off shore tax havens, that is change, very presidential, and very patriotic. If there are no under-the-table, behind-the-scenes, family-member-deals going on, then it is truly government service.

Tulip Time in Panama

No, no tulips.  You need cold weather for tulips.

Why “Tulip Time” . . . well, I went to seminary in Holland, Michigan which every Spring celebrated its Dutch Heritage of making money by holding a festival called “Tulip Time.”  There were endless parades, Dutch specialties to eat, lots of Dutch stuff to buy, and of course beautiful tulip fields.  My wife, as she was growing up in the Holland High School marching band, got to march it the Tulip Time parades, wearing . . . you got it, wooden shoes!  Every Tulip Time it was madness!  Bus loads of bands coming to compete from all over and hordes and hordes of tourists.

Since Hope College (where my wife went . . . I went to the arch rival school Calvin in Grand Rapids) and Western Seminary, where I went, are in Holland, Michigan and since the tulips bloom in May . . . Tulip Time coincided with exams and studying for exams.  How can you study when outside the library window are three bands practicing endlessly?  So, we tended to hate Tulip Time.

In those days the City of Holland planted tulips all along every road in town.  And there was a hefty fine for picking the tulips: I think something like $50 per flower.  So all the male students at Hope competed with one another to bring their girl friends the most expensive, unpaid for bouquets possible!  And to get back at the town fathers and the noise of Tulip Time, sometimes guys would drive slowly down a street with no cars with the passenger door open, neatly clipping the flowers off all the tulips.  They the city fathers got vicious, and started driving steel stakes randomly in the rows of tulips and ruining doors in lieu of fines.

So what’s all this Tulip Time mania have to do with Panama?

Just this . . . endless, endless drumming . . . over and over and over and over . . . same rhythm.  Bugles . . . which I always knew from summer camp revile were the instruments of the Devil . . . playing the same off-key notes over and over and over and over . . . all this because next week Panama comes to a screeching halt!

November is the patriotic month celebrating the birth of Panama.  Red, white and blue banners are everywhere!  [Kinda makes you wonder how they came up with red, white and blue, doesn't it.  I mean why not blue and yellow, or red and green?  Well red and green was already taken by the now-province of Chiriqui where I live which declared its own independence 50 ears before Panama.]  Anyway it is a BIG celebration, and it all starts Monday in Boquete with a huge parade that goes on endlessly with nothing but students marching and “bands” . . . we use that term loosely.  Bands in Panama consist of 50 kids with drums playing the same thing over and over, 20 girls playing the same repetitious song on bell lyres, and a few guys with bugles . . . but it is all done with enthusiasm, and I guess that is the point.  The parade itself runs usually about 8 hours!!  Of sameness!

In addition to the drum noise, there are the marching practices.  I swear in October no kid learns anything in Panama but how to march . . . poorly.  And they practice . . . and stop traffic . . . and they practice . . . and they march, and march, and march.  Would that they put as much effort into math and science!

Anyhow it is a wonderful celebration of country!  And there is lots of time for family!  Many official, and even more unofficial days off work.  TWO celebrations of Independence . . . one from Spain and the other from Columbia.   Independence from Spain is celebrated on November 28, and the November 3 holiday is independence or “separation” from Columbia.  So, scratch November.  Then comes the big holiday, Mother’s Day, early in December . . . then Christmas . . . then the Boquete Fair . . . then Carnival . . . then Holy Week . . . so sometime in April life, and work returns to normal.

At least Tulip Time only lasted a week.

And, to answer your unasked question, with all this going on, there is no time for . . . or need for . . . Halloween.

Sometimes it is a struggle to fully enter into and appreciate the culture.  Especially when you aren’t fluent in the language.  My problem, not Panama’s  It’s fine for many folks who come down here and generally make their own lives, pretty much strictly amongst other expats.  I drove into Valle Escondido the other day and saw all the same guys I always see getting ready to spend the morning playing golf.  And I said, in my very halting Spanish, to my Indian worker Sabino, “These gringos just play golf every day.  I just work every day.”  What’s wrong with me???   We’ve chosen to try and enter into the coffee culture, so we end up with a lot of folks who only speak Spanish, and who know a whole lot about coffee and try to communicate it to us . . . and with our limited Spanish skills we only get part of it, or get it backwards . . . yikes!

I have never received the gift of “speaking in tongues.”  For those who have that gift, fine, but God has never given it to me.  But I have prayed, and asked, and worked for the gift of speaking in one tongue . . . Spanish . . . and it eludes me!  I know lots and lots of vocabulary . . . and verbs . . . I just don’t know what to do with the damn verbs!  Some locals have the patience of Job . . . or Jose . . . and manage to interpret my garble and make sense of it.  Sabino, our young Indian guy is amazing at figuring out what I’m trying to say.  Our other Indian guy, Alfonso, thinks he understands me . . . and then runs on in rapid fire Spanish, or is it Gnobe . . . and thinks I understand him.

Living in Panama as an expat is fun . . . but also frustrating at times.

Happy Penis Day

Believe it or not . . . this post has gotten more traffic than almost any other, and since people seem to like “it” . . . it bears repeating . . . I guess.

Leave it to the Japanese.

It’s called Honen Matsuriand is celebrated every March 15 in Komaki, a town about 45 minutes north of Nagoya. Folks haul out a big wooden penis and the celebration begins. Notice in these things that it always has to be big . . . small doesn’t count, so size must matter.

The idea is to bring a good harvest and have babies. Seem easier just to plant the rice and then make love, but who am I to get in the way of a good celebration. Question: does Hallmark in Japan sell Happy Penis Day cards? If not, they are definitely missing an opportunity!

Well Japan isn’ t the only place. According to “Urban Dictionary” . . .

In New Zealand, September 4th is national penis day. Heaps of guys in each of the main cities go to a public place (like The Square in Christchurch), get naked and stand in a formation so as to form a giant penis. Lots of chicks and dirty old men go.

Well, I guess it’s better than hanging out with the sheep. It looks a little like a locker room, but hey, whatever floats your boat. Actually the event is a chance to promote awareness of testicular and prostate cancer.

And actually it’s not just the modern world . . . If you’re in Mikonos take the shore excursion over to Delos. There never was much on Delos by way of natural resource, but it became the spiritual center of the Greek world and a thriving center of commerce. Delos had been a spiritual center for a millennium before Greek mythology made it the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis. Delos became the center of the cult of Dionysus, the Greek party god of wine, drunkenness, celebration and fertility. He was known as “the god who comes” . . . no, notwhat you may be thinking. But hundreds of thousands made the pilgrimage to Delosand returned with little souvenir penis amulets . . . a kind of early Grecian fertility clinic. The symbol of Dionysus was an erect phallus, and if you visit Delos today you can see the remains of the giant erect penises that stood in the Stoivadeion. At the base of this erection pillar you will see a cock, with it’s long neck, which was another Dionysian symbol. “Cock” . . . a little free etymology here folks!

Lest all this seem a bit erotically confusing in our modern age, remember that it was not until Pythagoras (582-507 BC), the “Father of Numbers”, came along that anyone had any idea how kids happen! I mean with all these erections around, they obviously had some idea that drinking wine and making whoopee contributed to the process. But Pythagoras was the first to speculate that human life begins with a blend of male and female “fluids”, or “semens” originating in body parts. So, with that in mind, and if you wanted a kid, or a good crop of grapes, a trip to Delos was probably a good idea.

I suppose National Penis Day isn’t such a bad idea. After all penises bring a lot of fun to life for both those of us who have them and those who don’t.

It can be a lonely life being a penis, so why not celebrate!

OK, in computer-generated Spanish as well . . . heaven help us what this turns out to say!

Just when you thought flying Delta was as bad as it can get . . .

I really hate to fly Delta. No food. No service. Surly in the air and on the ground. Dependably late. But the cruise lines all love Delta and even if they have to fly me from Panama via Timbuktu to get to Ft Lauderdale . . . and the cruise lines always buy the worst seats in the back of the plane and usually your assigned seats is between two folks going to the “Big Is Better” annual convention. Maybe Princess will be different . . . we shall see. And to think that at one time Delta was a great airline! Such is life on that great subway in the skies . . .

Well, now comes reason to really think twice before flying Delta.

(CNN) — Police met a wayward jet that overshot the runway by 150 miles — while not responding to control tower communications — and said the pilots were “cooperative, apologetic and appreciative.”

Authorities are reviewing the plane’s cockpit voice recorder as well as its flight data recorder.

The Minneapolis-St. Paul [Minnesota] Airport Police report on the incident, released Friday, said officers asked flight attendants to keep passengers in their seats while they checked out the cockpit, where, they said, “the door was standing open.”

The police report identified the pilot as Timothy B. Cheney and the first officer as Richard I. Cole.

“The pilot … indicated they had become involved in conversation and had not heard radio communications,” the report said . . . Northwest Flight 188 flew past its Minneapolis airport destination during a mysterious 78 minutes of radio silence beginning about 7:56 p.m. ET Wednesday night . . . The Airbus A320 was carrying 147 passengers and an unknown number of crew members . . .”

Isn’t that reassuring?

So the shop talk . . . “Should Delta fire dumb-ass flight crews who aren’t paying attention to the safety of 150 plus people on board?” . . . gets in the way of driving the frickin’ plane? OK, this guy’s tail was painted Northwest, but Northwest is now owned by Delta. Maybe they were discussing the buy out, or kids, or wives or whatever . . . point is they should have been paying attention to driving the plane.

Earlier in the week another ace Delta flight crew managed to miss the runway at Atlanta entirely and instead landed on the taxiway. Just what some poor pilot easing out onto the taxiway needs . . . a frickin plane landing at zumpteen miles per hour in his face.

Who’s running the asylum anyway?

OK, so Princess will probably stick me on Delta to Europe and I will be strip-searched, denied my 10 peanuts, bitch-slapped by surly flight attendants, denied use of the restrooms, and seated beside the blue waters with strips of used toilet paper flowing out of the nonfunctioning rest room all the way to Europe . . . then met by flashing blue lights and escorted off the plane because I questioned the accuracy of the male flight attendant’s explanation that, “Darling, those tiny little pieces of brown floating in the blue waters are definitely NOT poo, honey, believe me . . . but just a tray of brownies I spilled on my way to First Class.”

Pleeeeeeeeeeease, KLM me, make me a Virgin, even the unfriendly skies of United, anything but Delta!

But now

Grabbing A Tiger By The Tail

I don’t know why I do it, but it seems that I’m always grabbing the tiger by the tail! Big mistake! If I grabbed him by the balls, I’d at least have some control. But when you grab a tiger by the tail you either hang on for the ride, or let go . . . and get mauled.

Latest tiger . . . coffee. OK, we’ve been growing superb coffee now for a couple of years. My wife, Nikki, invests a lot of time, effort . . . and money . . . into growing an excellent product. We spend a lot of money on chicken shit, otherwise known as fertilizer . . . and it shows. Now comes time to harvest and sell our beautiful coffee cherries. Take it to a big beneficio, stand in line with everyone else, some of whom have nice coffee, some of whom haven’t spent a dime on fertilizer and just have shitty little cherries . . . and we all get the same price per lata. Boquete, Panama is known for specialty coffee . . . not just any coffee, but the stuff, if you can find it, that a coffee buff will gladly buy in the States for $14-16 a pound . . . and we, really small time growers [Forget all that Fair Trade stuff, it's for big consortiums of independent growers, not really the small, little guys you assume] . . . we the little growers, and our little grower neighbors are getting, if we’re lucky, about 35 cents of that $14-16 a pound.

So we’re not breaking even, nor are our neighbors, gringos and Panamanians, who are struggling to keep the coffee culture alive in Boquete. Frankly the big guys have it wrapped up. But that’s pretty much the way business is done in Panama in general. It’s cost prohibitive to attempt to export the stuff directly . . . and unless you have some niche market in Panama, you’re stuck.

Well, I think I’ve found a market. So we’ve decided to attempt to process some of our coffee, hold it out and roast it and test this market. Last year some of the big guys were still willing to process small batches of coffee for tiny growers like us. This year they are still willing, but have tripled their prices . . . a nice way I guess of saying, “No.” So, with the help of a lot of Panamanian friends, we found a hand operated machine that removes the cherry pulp from the bean, and we’re trying to motorize it. And the first few picking have gone better than we expected. After the beans are pulped they need to be washed, and then . . . here comes the stickler! . . . dried. The traditional method is to lay the beans out in the sun and let them dry. All well and good, except . . .

The dreaded October rainy season has come upon us in earnest!

We are picking in the rain. Nothing unusual about that. Our Gnobe Bugle Indian neighbors arrived wrapped snuggly in black garbage bags and work in the rain.

But you can’t dry coffee when there is no sun and it’s constantly raining!

So we’re on to plan ZZ48 . . . in Panama you always need a plan B, plan C . . . plan Z . . . plan ZA, etc.

The big guys have giant rotating dryers, something like giant clothes dryers and use a combination of propane gas and dead and fallen trees for heat. It takes around 8-10 hours in one of these giant dryers to dry coffee. In the sun, if you have sun, and depending how long the sun is out and how hot it is, it may take 3 to 8 days to dry your coffee.

So that’s where we’re at . . . and I’m almost ready to start using the clothes dryer, which, unfortunately won’t do it. I’ve heard of rain dances, and praying for rain . . . has anyone heard of sun dances and praying for sun?

So whether it’s 66 lectures for a world cruise in two months . . . believe me it takes more time than you think! . . . or processing our own coffee . . . I’m very good at grabbing the tiger by the tail. Have been all my life. I guess I’m just a slow learner.